what a difference a day makes

My family is hurting.
My mother's great-aunt, Vivian, passed away yesterday. Now Gramma is the last sibling left.
I didn't know Vivian very well. I met her once, at Gramma's wedding when I was 15. That was when Aunt Bernice was alive too, a woman about three inches shorter than I am. They are both dead and my grandmother did not get to see any of them before they passed. And her brother Eddie, they only called her after he had died.
I am scared of my close family dying. In my head I see this field where every member of my family is standing .. the ones I know and love best closer to the center... and there is Death, a black cloud, overpowering all the people on the outside until there is just the inside left. The insensitive and selfish thought that is running through my mind is "Now there is no one else left but my precious close family."
I'm embarassed to say it.

My cousin is 20 and has already completed a stint in in-patient care at a hospital for anxiety and depression. I gave his father a letter to give to my cousin and he said "Is there anything in here that's bad? I'm responisble for his mental health now." In his face I could see the wear and tear, the stress, and Ache, because his child is in pain. I almost started crying, scared that maybe there was something in there that was bad... but my uncle changed his concerned expression to a wry one and said "I'm only joking". I have never been very close to Adam, but the last time I saw him .. I had just come back from India and he, from Africa. We talked on the front steps of Aunt Marianne's house for a half hour. He smoked a Marlboro Red and I played with the beads on my slippers. We laughed about our family and I said, "Our family might be crazy, but there sure are a lot very smart and interesting people in it." Adam is one of them. It's weird, after 21 years of my life, not feeling any one way about him, I love him so much. Out of nowhere, a new found appreciation.

So, needless to say, I talked to Mom today. I told her all of my good news in the five seconds allowed and then listened about Aunt Vivian and Adam.. and the little cousins who love their aunts and uncles and gramma and don't know how to hurt for them yet. Jack's hair is getting long and when he gets his hair cut he gets a "lollie", Arran is a sports star, and Gavin is in love with every little baby he sees .. even though he's just one himself. Mom told me in November that Gramma does not want to die. 'I love life', she told my Mom. She tells her husband that she'll die before he does and that he should stop telling her where all his important papers are.

I wish we were all closer and not scattered around the northeast coast (and one in europe if you count Uncle Michael who hasn't set foot on native soil in 12 years).
This isn't about living life waiting to die .. or sitting around feeling sorry for yourself because it's all going to end anyway.. Maybe it's just to remind me that we all die, because sometimes I forget. I hate admitting that I am scared of death because Death isn't something you can overcome or get around. Only when you canbe at peace with the fact that it will happen, can you live life to the fullest. Is that how it works? I'm unsure.